Stop me if you’ve heard this before — The Australian has published a story with a picture of a bloke standing on a beach to prove that sea levels aren’t rising. Mitchell Nadin tells us:

At 73, former CSIRO engineer Denis Whitnall has seen many things — but rising sea levels isn’t one of them.

Looking out over the Pacific Ocean from the back of his waterfront property at Avoca, on the NSW central coast, Mr Whitnall shakes his head as he talks about a grim report commissioned by his local council in 1995 that predicted some houses along the beachfront, including his own, would be subject to flood risk. “The council had a town meeting and told everyone properties along the waterfront were going to be under threat,” Mr Whitnall said. “Everyone was aghast. Twenty feet (6m) of water is supposed to be covering my land (by 2015).”

Wow! That sounds serious. Let’s hope Nadin checks to see if the report really did say that. His story continues:

Hazard lines included in Gosford City Council’s 1995 coastal management plan, obtained by The Australian, forecast a threat of flood for some waterfront homes by 2015, due to a combination of shoreline movement from a rise in the sea level and major storm events.

But did it predict that Whitnall’s house would 6m underwater?

“The Avoca beach unit as a whole has been assessed as losing sand in the long term. This, together with sea level rise, will lead to shoreline retreat over time. Thus, the extent of severe storm erosion will move landward progressively over time,” the 1995 report says. However, 16 years after the release of the council’s warning, the shoreline remains about 100m from Mr Whitnall’s back door, where it was when his family acquired the property in 1951.

The projected rates of retreat and erosion are summarised in Table 3.1.

And here’s Table 3.1:

So it predicted a 8 metre retreat in 20 years, or about 6m in 16 years. Which would mean that the shoreline would move from being about 100m from Whitnall’s house to … being about 100m from Whitnall’s house. The plan did not predict that Whitnall’s house would be under 6m of water by 2015. Even the projection of a 20m retreat by 2045 would leave the shoreline a long way from Whitnall’s place.

It is hard to believe that Nadin did not read the sentence following the one he quoted and that he was unaware that the Whitnall’s claim about what the report said was entirely false.

Nadin’s story continues:

Mr Whitnall said while the 1995 report had been discredited, Gosford was among 55 coastal NSW councils “at it again” by using “flawed” data to warn of possible floods. “The data council is using from the 2007 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report has been shrouded in controversy since its release,” he said.

This being a news story in The Australian comment from scientific experts on sea level changes is nowhere to be found.

Mitchell Nadin, I should note, has form when it comes to misrepresenting the science.

Perhaps The Australian could be pressured into declaring that as sea levels aren’t rising, Rupert Murdoch will personally guarantee his organisation to insure beachside properties for the next 60 years, or at least refund the difference between today’s prices and rises in insurance costs over the period.

‘Putting your money where your mouth is’, is I’m sure a phrase every reader of The Australian would be familiar with and appreciate the sentiment of.

I still find myself surprised at the audacity of the lying that is passed off as journalism at News Ltd. That the over-opinionated idiot Bolt swallows it whole is entirely routine,however.Anyone for a subscription?

One of the possible ironies in this is that Gosford City Council’s Coastal Management Plan (adopted 1995) specifically mentions landward regression due to storm surges, presumably much of which would come from east coast lows (depressions off the NSW coast that are not uncommon and which lead to heavy rain, strong onshire winds, heavy seas and – you guessed it – coastal erosion).

Leaving aside for a minute the question of a climate change signature in the formation of east coast offshore depressions, should it come to pass that one such east coast low resulted in significant chunks of Avoca Beach and Mr Whitnall’s property going AWOL (or threatened to) he’d be the first on the blower to Council bitching that they’d failed to carry out their responsibility to ensure coastal processes occurring on Council managed land didn’t affect his property. Which story would doubtless feature prominently in the OO.

Being an engineer who does understand much of the science (and learning more as I go along especially using text books now listed at RealClimate) and checks facts I entered Avoca into Google Earth and was puzzled, not being a native of Australia and thus not knowing where Gosford County was, by being place in NSW but in land. Now thanks to you I can locate the place in question and use another Google Widget to investigate further.

“The council had a town meeting and told everyone properties along the waterfront were going to be under threat,” Mr Whitnall said. “Everyone was aghast. Twenty feet (6m) of water is supposed to be covering my land (by 2015).”

Note carefully. This comment refers to a council’s townhall meeting; it does not refer to any coastal management report. Maybe your time would be better spent investigating what that townhall meeting said and whether it was an accurate reflection of the coastal management plan.

Don’t blame the fourth Estate for their rediculous figuring on sea level rises. Blame the Coucils neglecting to invite ‘proof’ do date. I wonder how many prime beachside residents sold out cheap to the ‘real Estate’ agencies. Media is governed by the Advertisers being offended.

Don’t blame the fourth Estate for their rediculous figuring on sea level rises. Blame the Coucils neglecting to invite ‘proof’ do date. I wonder how many prime beachside residents sold out cheap to the ‘real Estate’ agencies. Media is governed by the Advertisers being offended.

I’m with Reality Check on this one. The first thing I noticed was that Whitnall referred to what he was told at the meeting, not what he read in the report. Granted, he should have read the report in order to be properly informed.

Tim, do we know that the council engineers, if there are any such persons, spoke at the meeting at all? All I can tell is that at a “local council meeting” that happened 16 years ago, Whitnall claims he was informed that a portion of his land was going to be under water by 2015.

All we can say for certain is that Whitnall makes claims about what was said at the meeting and not about what the report says, at least not directly. How do we know any engineers spoke about the report at the meeting? How do we know that it wasn’t just the members of the “local council” who spoke and got the data wrong? I don’t see any way to tell from the info presented.

The article says, “…Whitnall shakes his head as he talks about a grim report…”. This sentence is immediately followed by a direct quote from Whitnall which ends with the claim of a 6m sea-level rise.

It’s entirely possible Whitnall was talking about something else, but Nadin himself is clearly trying to communicate the idea that the report contains the 6m sea level rise.

Notice the usual breach of professionalism: nowhere is somebody from the council, state Dept. of Environment, BoM or CSIRO consulted to provide balance to Whitnall’s assertions and elucidate the actual issue.

Instead, some confused and ambiguous information is presented in such a way as to give maximum encouragement to people who hold unusual fringe beliefs about the reality of sea level rise.

But Mitchell dear, Tim never alleged you did say that, you shabby, piss-poor, boot-licking excuse for a reporter.

the 1995 report it says with a major storm event, a portion of his land could be covered due to erosion and sea level rises.

Yes, we know that, some of us read the Management Plan before we put finger to keyboard. The quesion is: why is it you failed to mention this fact that you now think so salient in your execrable little puff-piece? Was it too hard to read the Gosford City Council Coastal Maangement Plan before you submitted your piece of fiction? Or was it simply an “inconvenient truth”?

and I have to say deltoid, you should probably clarify things like this with the author before smearing his name

Attempt to shift focus of criticism – FAIL.

Attempt to hold others to standards you can’t be arsed with yourself – FAIL.

George’s appeal ‘is to reason and evidence’ and fears ‘that many politicians have never investigated the primary evidence’. George’s reason and evidence includes such multiple dot pointed gems including:
>The earth has cooled during the past 10,000 years since the Holocene climate optimum

>The earth warmed between 1979 and 1998 and has cooled slightly since 2001

And George, as the head of the Catholic Church in Australia, doesn’t pretend to display prudence with his political affiliations:
>Whatever our political masters might decide at this high tide of Western indebtedness, they are increasingly unlikely, because of popular pressure, to impose new financial burdens on their populations in the hope of curbing the rise of global temperatures, except perhaps in Australia, which has 2 per cent of the world’s industrial capacity and only 1.2 per cent of its CO2 emissions, while continuing to sell coal and iron worth billions of dollars to Asia.

George Pell is at it again – he’s suspicious of climate science because some people call the fake ‘skeptics’ deniers. Very scientific reasoning 😀

This is a bit OT, but the article is in The Australian. (He seems to have backed off saying the science is a complete sham. Maybe he’s going to eventually be converted (an in-joke if you’re Catholic!))

To read the paper, if you must (it’s not all bad all the time), see this tip.

I was able to read the enjoyable ‘exception proving the rule’ article referenced by Acacia behind the Australian’s paywall via the method provided in that link by Sou @45! Thanks to both.

If I was making predictions, though, I’d predict the Paywall will fail – not because of this tedious work-around, but because there are simply too many alternative news resources, easier to access (and many of them significantly less tendentious!) – and the general readership and general influence of the Australian will decline accordingly.

Since it already makes a loss – and I understand always has – not much changes. The main function of the paper is to act as a stick to beat the government with, after all! Except of course, that nobody will actually read it anymore, rather undermining the cover story; being a newspaper…

We’re already seeing a situation where the Murdoch Empire shareholders are increasingly antsy and they may well ask why they’re tossing money at the Old Man’s greying, sway-backed political hobby-horse.

And even they must have grasped that the dreary organ’s zealous efforts to ensure an unlivable climate for future generations in the name of ideological purity are pretty, um, Stupid…